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New Plot - Old Lot! (450)

New Plot - Odd Lot!

At the next Town, May decided to enter the contest in order to win her 5th Pokémon Contest in Kanto in order to qualify for the Grand Festival. However when there, May & Co. meet up with May's Rival Harley who still wants to stop May from entering the Grand Festival, and he intends to mess up this contest for her so she cannot get her fifth ribbon. To do so, he teams up with Team Rocket. Will May be able to enter and win?

I just want to know HOW Harley will convince Team Rocket to allow him to join them. Maybe Team Rocket respects Harley's mean personality and automatically lets him join. Nobody knows...

Anyways, I MUST see this episode. I can't wait 'till it comes to Canada!

YOU JUST LOST THE GAME

Originally Posted by KickAsh

Guess what Gallade did last night? I don't know. Maybe he was at the bar, having a few drinks with his bros because even though he is so awesome he is also agreeable and a normal guy, just like you and me. Maybe he was with a woman. Maybe he was drag racing HORSES, which is a sport he invented. You know what else Gallade invented? The lightbulb.
AND LIFE ITSELF.

I've heard a younger Harley was shown. I also heard Banette appears. From taitofan in the Harley fan club.

Yes it's shown how Harley meets May for the first time as a kid. Harley is having lunch, it seems like he has a favorite piece of foot, so he starts eating his other stuff and saves the "best for the last". As he has eaten everything but the piece(of fish I think, it has the shape of an OCtillery), May appears, takes Harleys "fish" and eats it.
So that's why Harley seems to hate May...

Seen the episode pictures! This looks like a good'un. Harley is flouncy as ever, with a brand new gay walk(tm) and a delightfully unconvincing childhood flashback to explain why he hates May (personally I'm leaning on the theory that he made the whole thing up to get Jessie's sympathy). Banette, Cacturne and Ariados all make appearances - hurrah! And Cacturne falls in love with Jessie. XD It runs right up and glomps onto her like a crazed fanboy. Banette looks v. amused. Why are the ships in Pokemon so frequently disturbing, I wonder?

There wasn't quite as much plot as I was expecting... the episode covers the Harley/TR alliance and the appeals, but it feels a little bit like the writers had to pad it out to make it last the full twenty five minutes. Possibly I'll change my mind on this when I see the episode properly. Harley gets TR on his side surprisingly quickly, especially Jessie. Well, I suppose she's always been a sucker for tales of childhood trauma. Oh, cuteness note - Chibi!Harley had a lunchbox with an octopus on it, and his rice had a smiley face. Bless!

Anyhoo, brief synopsis: Harley and TR team up to stop May winning, as we all know. During the appeals, James and Meowth are given the task of helping Ariados trip up May and Combusken with String Shot. Ash goes to sort them out, but in the end he needn't have bothered; Combusken's Fire Spin burns up the string and poor Ariados gets a cookin' (afterwards, Harley has a huge snit fit at James and Meowth for letting his beloved Pokemon get hurt. Heeeee). The effect with the Fire Spin and the string looks very impressive, though, and May manages to end the appeal on a strong note, so she scrapes through into the second round. Oh, and Drew randomly turns up for the contest and then... stands around in the corridor leading from backstage onto the stage. Errrrr, what was wrong with the nice comfy chairs in the auditorium, exactly, Drew? Strange kid. XD

I didn't get everything, though, so... couple of questions for anyone who's seen the ep and has a better idea than me of what went on:

- What does Nurse Joy say to May at the beginning of the ep that makes her look so alarmed? Was it something about the Grand Festival being only a month away?

- Where was Harley's flashback supposed to be set? It looked like a school.

- When Lilian shows the ribbon, May has two short flashbacks (flashback city in this episode): one to the conversation she had with Drew at the end of the Grand Festival, and one to something Harley said at the beginning of the ep. What was all that about?

- Why was Jessie's hair a weird shape this episode? (That's not a serious question. It was weird, though.)

- Was it ever explained why Drew was there? And why did he look so serious all episode?

- Did May realise who Jessie was? There's an exchange between them that makes it slightly look that way. Or maybe it was just me.

- Was it ever explained why Drew was there? And why did he look so serious all episode?

I would think Drew was there to watch May OR stop Harley because in the next episode preview Spoiler:

he looks slightly evil when talking to Harley

so it might be the latter.

Well i've seen the pictures as well and all I can say is:

* OMGZ DREW! Yay. We don't see enough of him this season, we mostly get filler Coordinators or Harley these days, am I right? Yes I believe I am.

* Wow Jessie actually did well in her Appeal, you know if they didn't cheat during May's :P

* SUCKERS! May turned it all around, so in the end they ended up helping her or so it looked. But then again Ash was fighting James in the rafters. Or so it looked.

* Drew did seem awfully serious during the appeals, he must of had a hate for Harley ever since the Silver Wind trick he pulled on May in the Hoenn GF.

* That girl better not of been May in the child thing, I mean we've seen character look alikes before but if it is May i'll scream since well in the first episode Harley appeared in he didn't look like he even knew May. So that also kind of proves that it was just a random girl of the writers are really trying hard to find more reasons to make Harley Team up with TR.

I noticed that too when I saw the pictures(torrent doesn't work for some reason o_O)... But I can answer that! Compare the shading of her hair in this episode with any of the others. In this one, for some odd reason, they put the shading line only on the hair's body, and not on her fringe, where it usually is. That decreases the contrast between her hair and the forehead, so it's highly noticeable. And also doesn't look that good. -.- Gee I sound so boring...

Ok, one thing I don't get though for the flashback. It seems like in the flashback, Harley is the same age as May! o_O WTF??? Did Harly age faster than her at some point? But like Jo-Jo said, "it was probably made up to get Jesse's sympathy.

And with this episode, Combusken cements its place as May's best Pokemon to date... Again!

That "I Won't Lose!" song played during May's appeal was overly fitting. It's a rather catchy tune.

This episode makes me anxious to see a May Pokemon versus Harley Pokemon face-off one of these days. The likes of Combusken, Munchlax, Squirtle, and Eevee getting into a brawl with Cacturne, Banette, Ariados, and Octillery would be fun.

God, this was an excellent episode. Now I know why I'm starting to like the Contest episodes even more than Ash's Brain battles, the character interactions in this are brillaint! Not to mention the comedy, I had a smile on my face throughout the entire episode.

So much good stuff, I loved how nervous and insecure May was throughout most of the episode. She was really emotional throughout the entire episode, hiding her hand in her face (and the camera gives us a nice crotch shot), and going through her regular girly motions.

Harley and Team Rocket really make an awesome combination. Jessie/Harley is amusing, but Cacturne/Jessie > all! I loved it how they planned to defeat May in this episode, with them messing up May though the microphones and Ariados' string shot.

Cacturne's appeal was great, as was Combusken's. Top notch I'd say, some great animation with May twirling and falling on her butt, nice.

It was also great to see Ash involved more with her arc this time. May asks Ash for a practice battle and they run off together to do a little training before the competition, something they rarely do nowadays. It was also nice to see Ash go upstage and stop Ariados/James/Meowth, although Combusken defeated Ariados by itself, Ash managed to blast them off.

LMAO @ Harley freaking out over Ariados and yelling at James/Meowth. He sure is angry, loved the backstory with May-lookalike too. Oh, and Drew showing up was nice too, even though he didn't really do much. He obviously has all 5 ribbons.

I liked the non-vocal May's theme played, really nice and upbeat.

This really does feel like a mini-Grand Festival, and if this is a preview for things to come in the actual GF competition, then this is sure going to rock!

An almost perfect episode, except for the lack of Harley/James interaction as well as Cacturne/Cacnea. Oh well, maybe the next episode for them.

The animation stopped this episode from being perfect in my opinion. I really tried my best to ignore it, but I just couldn't. It sucked major ass, with FAR too many freakishly off-model shots and poorly executed movements for my liking. With hindsight, I wish they had considered having Iwane work on this episode, instead of the failure of a comedy ep that was last week's Sudowoodo romp.
Though I will say this. I'm not one for the appearance of attacks constantly altering. But my word, Noctus-chan’s rendition of Needle Arm kicks Cacnea’s weedy little rotating limb attack to the curb.

But otherwise? it was still a great watch.
They've been blatantly overusing Harley throughout the Battle Frontier trek, but I don't give a crap. Thus far, he hasn't failed to impress and I don't think he will for a long time to come. Straight off the bat (And I use the term 'straight' lightly...) he poured on the charm. The whole 'Oops! I 'accidentally' dropped my ribbon case' charade, the overly effeminate poses and the limp wrists. It was all a wonderful display of why this character is so god damn awesome. And there was his reaction to his oh-so-precious Ariados-chan being burnt to a crisp. Lovely stuff that, just lovely

I also enjoyed how sinister Team Rocket turned out this time around. I mean, we had the occasional scene of comic hi-jinks (the flaming Ariados...naturally *rimshot*), but otherwise their performance was pretty much spot on. Especially that of Jessie.
But of course, their comic rountines were great fun too. Noctus-chan crushing on Jessie was gut busting stuff to be sure.

Combusken's appeal kicked so much rear it's just not funny. Screw Squirtle and it's bs ice sculptures, and to hell with Munchlax and it's...whatever the hell it does. That one fire tornado spat all over the other performances we saw, and the instrumental of 'I won't lose!' only served to make it all the more appealing. Combusken is where it's at, for both appeals and battles.
Speaking of which. The scene near the beginning of the episode involving the sparring match between Ash and Haruka provided a much-needed slice of Haruka training time. We need to see more practise matches between the two in the future, as seeing little tid-bits like that make Haruka seem a much more respectable pokémon trainer.

If next week's episode turns out to be as good as this, despite obnoxious Squirtle usage, methinks I'll have to christen this as one of, if not the best Contest stop-off yet.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Cacturne's appeal was great, as was Combusken's. Top notch I'd say, some great animation with May twirling and falling on her butt, nice.

Well, of course. That's because most of it was stock footage from one of Tokuda's episodes :P